Why low fat?

For those of you following along I've heard from my nutritionist, here's what she had to say:

The reason we choose low-fat for the soups is because your new stomach has not yet been exposed to the nutrient of fat since the surgery (or if it has, a very small portion). With surgery, the new stomach can't tolerate a significant amount of this nutrient, or else you will feel sick and uncomfortable, which we would like to avoid! Long-term, we recommend low-fat or reduced fat food items as it is healthier overall, so we want to start practicing it early on.

Not sure that I buy into low-fat or reduced fat as healthier overall, but who knows, my pouch may decide that for me. So, for now at least low fat it is. ?

Smart people in this forum, thanks for all your insights, information and knowledge!

Nancy.

As someone else said, most low-fat/non-fat foods have the fat replaced with sugar or salt because the taste has to come from somewhere.

I have eaten whole fat foods since day 1 and lost 90+lbs in 5 1/2 months. It was never an issue with my early portions. I am still eating whole fat, low carb and still don't have an issue with my calories for maintenance.

I've wondered about the low fat thing myself. I did not react to having the full fat soups, I chose them as when I looked at the labels I decided the extra carbs/sodium in the lower fat probably made the full fat ones better. As I expand what I am eating I debate the low fat full fat some fat thing regularly. I tend to chose to not worry about the fat as again when I look at the labels there's always more sugar/sodium/carbs in the low fat versions to make it taste better. Wondering beyond immediately after surgery what do people tend to do.

I too have eaten full fat items from day one. The extra carbs in the low fat items are worse than the fat as far as I'm concerned. I lost over 160 pounds in less than nine months and have maintained now for 5 years. The small amount of fat we eat is important for skin and hair and to help with bathroom issues too.

Low-fat is bad science (unless you have a gall bladder issue or some other rare medical conditions). Even the AHA is admitting now that heart patients can have some healthy fats, although they refuse to admit yet that no research consistently upholds the discredited low-fat-is-good theory.

So yes, it's a throw-back to "fat is bad". Nutritionists and doctors can be (and often are) wrong. Eat (low-carb) fat. Your brain, skin, hair and body tissues will be so happy you did.

Audrey

Thank you Audrey, I agree.

I know I am a little late to the discussion but I believe that the low fat recommendation is because they are still told that fat is bad for your health and your weight which isn't true at all in my opinion. I take what a nutritionist/dietitian says with a grain of salt. When I was pregnant I had gestational diabetes and I was like 300 lbs. The dietitians at the diabetes clinic told me what i should be eating, low fat, lots of whole grains, oatmeal, etc. I did as they asked for about a month and my sugars could not be controlled by their diet recommendations and their solution was to put me on more and more insulin. I decided to ignore their advice and adopted a low carb/keto diet of meat, fish, whole dairy, eggs, vegetables and some berries. I stopped taking my insulin and my blood sugars were completely normal for the rest of my pregnancy. When I went for a follow up with the diabetic clinic dietitians when I was like 4 or 5 months pregnant they were so alarmed when I told them what I was doing but after speaking the the doctor there she was torn, her training and Health Canada tells them that I should be doing what they told me to do initially but if the way I was managing it myself was working then she was like keep doing that. I am by no means saying do what I did and completely ignore their advice, I am saying think about it, talk to your healthcare team, maybe try a small test and see how you feel after? At the end of it all I had a healthy full-term 9 lb baby boy and I didn't really gain much more weight after changing my diet.

I also wanted to note it kind of makes sense that perhaps initially you may want to limit fat since our bodies are still healing and may be sensitive or not ready to break down higher fat content items. I had my RNY surgery nearly 3 weeks ago. For the first 2 weeks I mostly followed their advice, although I did have full fat cream soups made with 1% milk. All dairy was 0/1% at first. This 3rd week I went to Fairlife 2% milk as its a lot less sugar, more protein and not that much fat in my opinion. So far I haven't noticed any issues switching to 2%, in a week or two I might try the Fairlife whole milk and see how it goes.